Girls in Waiting
by Sadie Dragonfire
Summary: Years later and as the adventure continues, Kairi finds herself still left behind. Post-game, implied Riku/Sora/Kairi. Introspective.


**Title: **Girls in Waiting

**Pairing(s):** Riku/Sora/Kairi

**Warning: **Implied threesome, but no major details. Mostly an introspective piece.

**Summary: **Kairi and Sora, a decision and a conflict. Riku is there, too.

* * *

It follows a pattern like a twisting wheel, like a spiral of seasons that brings pain and joy in alternating turns.

"Aren't you tired?" Kairi asks Sora, "Don't you want it to stop?"

"Sometimes," he says occasionally and his eyes are very old, scarred from countless battles, from the ever present burden of responsibility. But usually he grins his cheesy grin and shrugs his ever broadening shoulders and put his arms behind his head. "Nah, I was starting to miss everyone anyway."

She tells him "stupid, be honest with me", but what she really means is "stop leaving me behind".

Sora is perpetually cruel in this regard. He never thinks twice to tell her that she'll only get in the way, that he can't focus on what needs to be done if he doesn't know she's safe, that in the ever-turning wheel of his life, she, like the sands of their island, is the warm home that he will always struggle to return to. So off he goes on another adventure and behind she stays, safely in one spot. She considers it her burden for demanding his honesty and wonders why it makes her so mad.

Riku stays out of it when Sora is around, restraining himself to a fond wink and the promise to bring Sora back alive. But when it's just him and Kairi alone, he attempts to sooth her mostly unvoiced frustrations.

"I'm not always by his side either," Riku will tell her quietly in the half-light of the sunset. "Sometimes we're separated for weeks. I hate knowing he's out there without me to watch his back, but it's important for me to do my job, too. It also helps him."

Kairi nods firmly and tells herself that yes, this is it. This her important job. By waiting and staying safe, she is helping Sora. She is helping them both.

It's only a few days after being left behind yet again that her resolve turns into bitter ash in her mouth. She goes shopping with her mother and does homework and endures Selphie's good natured teasing about playing around with two boys at once. In the outside world, the fate of every life in existence is balanced on a pair of very young shoulders, while she paints her nails and remembers to put the trash out on time.

When she's alone, she stands barefoot in the surf and screams at the ocean, "none of this is important!"

The ash churns within her and the next time Sora and Riku are home again, she spoils it by picking fights. Their wounded confusion only winds her up tighter until finally, all her restrained resentment bursts free like the draining of an infected wound.

"I'm not your goal! I don't want to always wait for you! I hate it! I'm important too!"

At the end, she bursts into tears. Sora tries to apologize and franticly insists that she's "very important" to him. Riku, because it's the only way he knows how to show he cares, scolds her for thinking they look down on her until Sora makes him stop.

That night, the three of them talk about it well into the morning. Slowly, they begin to see her and understand.

"I think she should learn to fight," Riku says and amends himself, "Fight better, I mean," for the sake of her pride and the one time the two of them fought side by side. "When she's good at it, she can start going on missions with us."

The compromise claws at her and already she can see all the hitches and falls and loop holes in it. How good is good enough? Who will teach her if Sora and Riku are always gone? How can she truly learn without real battle experience? But Sora's clenched hands shake as he smiles and says that's probably a good idea, and she sees how painfully hard even that is for him. She agrees and, for now, doesn't push for more.

Later, when they have tangled up together in the shade of the tree and Sora has fallen asleep she asks herself, not for the first time, if it's fair of her to put her needs over his sense of security when he already endures so much.

"Am I selfish?" she says to Riku.

Riku, ever reassuring, shrugs and says, "Yes." Her pout doesn't daunt him and his big hands are calloused as he touches the side of her face. "But it's better for you to be selfish and honest then unhappy. You can't sacrifice yourself to make things easier for Sora. I don't want that and neither does he."

She thinks about this as the sun climbs up over the edge of the ocean and the tide pulls away from the shore. She thinks about what she'll do if they're never able to get around to training her or if it turns out that she isn't skilled enough to fight at their level. She thinks about what her father said to her once, when she cried about not being able to do math very well, that for every one thing a person is bad at, there are five more things they are good at it.

In the morning light, Kairi grins. She feels her potential inside of her, wrapped up in dozens of small packages that have to be found and carefully unwrapped with strength and determination. She is a Princess of Heart. She is beloved of two Keyblade masters. There doesn't have to be one path. If she is brave and smart and willing, maybe she can find a way to stay safe and help save the world, too.

And even if she can't have it both ways, at the very least, she won't stand around and wait any more.

END

* * *

you'll get there if you keep walking.


End file.
